Blake seeks to provide the Golden String which can lead us through the labyrinth of our experience or his own poetry.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

AS LITTLE CHILDREN

Reposted from Sunday, December 13, 2009.

Illustrations to Milton's Comus

Thomas Set

Illustration 3

Blake
was capable of making beautiful pictures of birth and renewal as he did
in "On the Morn of Christ's Nativity." His poetry too could create
lovely images of the gentle side of renewal and new beginnings. In The Four Zoas,
as the process of rebuilding a world whose fallen state had made the
critical reversal of direction, we find a passage which may surprise and
delight us. Tharmas and Enion who had become aged and exhausted as they
had wandered futilely in a world of pain and frustration, are the
subjects of this passage. Plucking Grapes

The Four Zoas, Page 129 (E397)"Then Vala lifted up her hands to heaven to call on EnionShe calld but none could answer her & the Eccho of her voice returnd

Where is the voice of God that calld me from the silent dewWhere is the Lord of Vala dost thou hide in clefts of the rockWhy shouldst thou hide thyself from Vala from the soul that wanders desolate

She ceas'd & light beamd round her like the glory of the morning

And She arose out of the river & girded on her golden girdleAnd now her feet step on the grassy bosom of the groundAmong her flocks & she turnd her eyes toward her pleasant houseAnd saw in the door way beneath the trees two little children playingShe drew near to her house & her flocks followd her footstepsThe Children clung around her knees she embracd them & wept over them

She embracd them in tears. till the sun descended the western hillsAnd then she enterd her bright house leading her mighty children

And when night came the flocks laid round the house beneath the treesShe laid the Children on the beds which she saw prepard in the houseThen last herself laid down & closd her Eyelids in soft slumbers

And in the morning when the Sun arose in the crystal skyVala awoke & calld the children from their gentle slumbers

This
was not the end of the process or regeneration, but it was the sort of
vision we are occasionally given in the midst of sorrow and woe, that
provides hope that all will be well. Being able to see the possibility
of starting afresh, of casting off the accumulated debris of traveling
through a world of sorrow, eases our way along the path to Eternity. .